Roger Cohen’s article, entitled “Perhaps, it’s high time for a War on Irritants,” in The Herald Tribune Mar 31-Apr 1 2007, was a great read as it was spot-on with how the little things matter. As Cohen writes, “…as we move and work more, and depend more on fallible technology, it may be that accumulated irritants are the real dirty bomblets of our harried lives.”
I note that a riposte about putting too much ice in one’s drink (in the US) was also very a propos. If Europeans only add one ice cube bothers Americans, one should observe that (1) a drink that is too cold is less healthy, (2) you don’t taste the taste as easily when it is too cold, and (3) ice is cheaper than the drink you are wishing to buy so you are actually getting ripped off when you are served a bucket of ice and a drop of drink.
Yendi and I have our own irritants to add to the ones in Cohen’s article:
1. Finding the dishwasher full when you go to put in the dirty dishes (thanks Adam for your contribution to our daily life)
2. The invisible line between smoking and non-smoking areas in European restaurants
3. Windows’ boot up time (compared to Apple)
4. People with voice mail boxes that are “full” and not accepting more messages
5. Complaints about the weather (and other things that cannot be changed)
6. People who park in the bus lane in front of the restaurant and block access for buses to pull up to the bus stop (this is most frequent down in front of our building here at DS)
7. MOST drivers of SUVs
8. People who just “delete all” emails without having read them (especially at work that is)
9. No “right on red” allowed in Europe
10. Keeping up with all your usernames and passwords…
Anyone else have any others??